October 8, 2012

Pew: Romney 49%, Obama 45%.

Among likely voters. Last month, Romney trailed by 8 points. That means Romney has picked up 12 points!

People even like Romney more!
Coming out of the debate, Mitt Romney’s personal image has improved. His favorable rating has hit 50% among registered voters for the first time in Pew Research Center surveys and has risen five points since September. At the same time, Obama’s personal favorability rating has fallen from 55% to 49%.
And women are evenly divided:
Currently, women are evenly divided (47% Obama, 47% Romney). Last month, Obama led Romney by 18 points (56% to 38%) among women likely voters.
Romney picked up 18 points with women!

ADDED: Over at Nate Silver's blog at the NYT, commenters are begging him to update his latest post, which is from last night and has the reassuring title "National Polls Show Signs of Settling." His readers need absorbing this news:
Where are you Nat? Reassure about the Pew poll...
Silver's all about processing/massaging the data, and he does seem to minister to the sensitivities of NYT readers.

UPDATE: Shortly after midnight, Silver answered the call for help. (I'll do a new post about it.)

58 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Perhaps the most significant fallout from the debate.

The Obama portrayal of Romney as a Satanic figure who lives to drive steel workers out of their jobs and infect their wives with terminal cancer...

Fell apart.

chickelit said...

Romney projects a certain éminence grise; Obama just emanates Greece.

yashu said...

Silver's all about processing/massaging the data, and he does seem to minister to the sensitivities of NYT readers.

That's why he's Obama's pet pollster.

Elle said...

Wait 'till the ladies get an earful/eyeful of Ryan come Thursday.

Dante said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dante said...

I trust Rasmussen, and he has it a tossup.

AF said...

Finally! Some love for the Pew poll on Ann Althouse's blog!

This is a very good result for Romney. However, it's not necessarily inconsistent with what we've seen in the tracking polls, which is that Mitt saw a big bounce on Thursday and Friday which plateaued and may have begun to recede by Sunday. We shall see.

Balfegor said...

I don't read Nate Silver often, but he seems reasonably good at what he does -- he does seem to know (better than me, at least) what is going into the polls and how to read them.

That said, he confessed earlier in this cycle that the polls do not make sense -- not because they're going against his pet candidate (Obama, and they weren't at the time), but because the local and national numbers don't match, polls in different locales suggest oddly different results, and the cross-tabs look weird.

Carnifex said...

Geez! It's almost like some of us on here predicted! We must be psychic! Or maybe we just know how to read polls, and human nature.





NNNaaaaahhhhh.

Where's your Rasmussen from last eek now Garage?

More predictions...

the media will spin this as good for Zero because more people are paying attention, and that means all Zero has to do is show up and smile, and the elections in the bag. Smile because they don't dare trust him to open his pie hole again without a minder.

Shiloh, GM, and the usual clueless gang will come on spiking the football about the massaged poll numbers that are going to come out tomorrow. Also the massaged unemployment numbers. Those numbers will be quietly downgraded again starting i the middle of next week, and full blown retreat the last weekend of the month so that next months jump in unemployment won't be as stark.

These guys are easy to predict...say and do anything to protect the holy grail of liberalism...the affirmative action president.

edutcher said...

I would take this with more salt than in Siberia. Keep in mind, this is the one that was D +19 a few weeks ago.

Dante said...

I trust Rasmussen, and he has it a tossup.

Dante said...

I trust Rasmussen, and he has it a tossup.

Come back Wednesday. What you see now may be Barry's good weekend numbers (he always polls better on the weekends).

If the Romster is back up, then some good cheer is in order.

Steve Austin said...

Like the post!

I think Silver is a very smart and thoughtful guy. But I don't think the inevitable Obama election that he tried to create ever existed.

This thing is a toss-up that will go down to election day.

Paul said...

Romney stepped on Obama like a bug in the debate.

And this week 'Slow Joe' Biden meets Ryan.

That ought to be good for a few more points.

People now see just what Obama is like without the teleprompter. Now they will see Slow Joe without... well just as he is.

Seeing Red said...

Oversampled Pubbies by 5 - they're tied.

pm317 said...

YAY!!

pm317 said...

Romney projects a certain éminence grise; Obama just emanates Greece.

LOL.. nicely done.

Michael said...

You dont see theObama signs in the yards this year and the bumper stickers are thinned considerably. The rigged polls have the proles believing that Obama has wom so there is little reason for them to lug themselves to the polls. The people,of good faith who voted for Obama because of his rhetoric or his skin color wont be doing it again this year. I predict a stunning Romney win and gob smacked surprise by pollster and pundit alike.

pm317 said...

Pew has the Rs at +3, I heard. Still not much of a skew from where they had it before.

Michael said...

You dont see theObama signs in the yards this year and the bumper stickers are thinned considerably. The rigged polls have the proles believing that Obama has wom so there is little reason for them to lug themselves to the polls. The people,of good faith who voted for Obama because of his rhetoric or his skin color wont be doing it again this year. I predict a stunning Romney win and gob smacked surprise by pollster and pundit alike.

buwaya said...

Pew is a lousy outfit no matter what they project. They are all over the place prior to elections and only come close close to the election.
Rasmussen gets much closer to the actual outcomes way before the election.

Seeing Red said...

Vodkapundit posted this:

Don’t get too excited about that Pew poll showing Romney up four points and closing in on 50%. Their sample was R+5, which seems about as likely as the D+9 sample in the dumbass poll Politico released today.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

A good (far-left) friend's take on the debate:

Romney managed to hide horns and hoof - well done! Obama was not at his sharpest.

Shouting Thomas said...

The next debate is on domestic issues, right?

Might be more problematic for Romney. He has to finesse abortion, gay activism and the demand for more tax revenue that seems to be driving Dems nuts.

Plus, it could get pretty nerdy when they start talking about "job creation."

Automatic_Wing said...

So now they're oversampling Republicans to set up the Comeback Kid meme in a week or two.

Michael K said...

"The next debate is on domestic issues, right?:

The next R-O debate is a "town hall" format and I don't think the questions are limited (except by the SEIU types that will ask them). The one after that is supposed to be foreign policy.

Ryan should be pretty interesting. Biden lied his way through the debate with Palin in 2008. Ryan has all the facts she didn't have.

Joe Schmoe said...

I wasn't convinced the polls were good 3 weeks ago. I'm not convinced they are any good now. They're dart tosses. Like stock pickers.

cubanbob said...

This year the polls for multple reasons are crap. The polls will only reflect the actuall election results one week to ten days out.

There are no real undecided voters, thats all bull. There are Obama voters from 2008 who may not vote to reelect him in November. I hardly belive anyone who voted for McCain in 2008 is going to vote for Romney. If Romney wins, he will win because of Romney democrats. At the end of the day evey voter will ask himself do I belive Obama desrves to be reelected or is Romney a better choice than the proven track record that Obama represents. Obama caught a perfect wave four years ago, but this time the waves are against him. Obama has no record of achievemnt to run on so all he has left is to convince the democrats who may vote for Romney that Romney will be far worse than he will be in a second term. Can he do that? Maybe but that isn't an easy task and he has little time to do it and if the last debate and today's speech is any indication, Romney isn't going to cooperate in his defeat.

Steve Austin said...

Sure, this is an unreliable poll and it maybe oversamples the GOP.

But going to the Nate Silver theme of this post, I remember Silver a couple weeks ago saying something like "It is telling the Romney has never led in any national poll"

Well, now he has.

So much new data for Silver to sift through tonight....I hope he's up to the challenge.

exhelodrvr1 said...

So the vagina vote is split?

Anonymous said...

This is a bad year for polling. I'm not doing any snoopy dances until November.

That said, I believe Obama's numbers have been consistently overestimated for months. The debate broke the spell that Obama is the inevitable winner, contrary to all the media drumbeating to that effect, and that he is an especially brilliant politician. It also showed that Romney is a perfectly fine presidential candidate.

I wouldn't sweat the polls. Fingers crossed, the worst is over. Obama is about out of ammunition and various chickens are coming home to roost. Romney has emerged as his own man, and not the caricature of him created by the Obama campaign and the media.

chickelit said...

Seeing Red said...
Oversampled Pubbies by 5 - they're tied.

A Pepe Le Pew Poll.

When did polling become such a shyster game? All pump and dump scheming? It's noticably worse this cycle.

yashu said...

So now they're oversampling Republicans to set up the Comeback Kid meme in a week or two.

I wouldn't be surprised. Remember how PPP ridiculously oversampled Republicans in that MO poll, which encouraged Akin to say in the race. So I don't put anything past them.

These are good tidings; I have no doubt the debate has had a powerful effect on the race; but I take all polls with a grain of salt, no matter which way they lean. I trust some (e.g. Rasmussen) only enough to tell me this: Romney can win. Not that he will, but he has excellent chances. Our side has to keep motivated.

The narrative of Obama's inevitable victory was always a big load of crap.

Chip Ahoy said...

Speaking of shellacking, can't you throw a coat of oil on that bench you showed us?

I painted some oil on the wooden handles and the little side trays for the Big Green Egg and I could hear the the sighs of relief. <-- possible exaggeration.

AF said...

All of you noting that the Pew poll "oversampled" Republicans -- kudos on your consistency.

I'm going to be consistent too and say that there was no oversampling. Party affiliation is a poll result, not a demographic. This is a very good poll for Romney.

Paddy O said...

Romney projects a certain éminence grise; Obama just emanates Greece.

nicely put

bagoh20 said...

Did the lefties all compete in that cockroach feast? Where are they?

edutcher said...

A more telling poll is the Battleground poll which shows a big enthusiasm gap in favor of the Romster.

exhelodrvr1 said...

So the vagina vote is split?

At least when it's wet.

Carnifex said...

Just got the weighting on this poll...it was heavy for R's.

34.7 R/34 D/31.1 I.

Apparently the republicans have learned about skewing poll data with weighting.

But...but...but... it was only .7 %, not the +4 - +12 that the dem's were crowing about.

Anonymous said...

The two University of Colorado professors who have correctly predicted the results of every presidential election since 1980 (including the popular/electoral college split in 2000) have updated their August prediction.

http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2012/10/04/updated-election-forecasting-model-still-points-romney-win-university


They predict that Romney wins 330 electoral votes, including PA, OH, FL,NH and VA. If he really does snag PA, I'll break open the champagne early, because it'll be game over.

Joan said...

I was wondering when the polls would start shifting R-ward. The polling companies are not stupid, but they are in a tough position. They want to support Obama but also want to continue their business after the election. If their poll results are widely off from the election results, why should anyone pay money or attention to them ever again?

As the election approaches, the polls will become increasingly more accurate. They have to, or many pollsters will be out of their jobs.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

For people stating the oversampling of Republicans, where are you finding this. I looked at Professor's link and only saw the unweighted rep/dem numbers.

sakredkow said...

"But everybody know that life is going to be life regardless of who is president."
Lil Wayne

sane_voter said...

The electorate may be R+2 or R+3 this year among voters. Rasmussen reported the electorate at election time was R+ 1.3 in 2010 and D+7.6 in 2008. We know how those turned out. My understanding is that Rasmussen is still using a D+3 for his latest polls, but he's reporting that Likely Voter party affiliation was R+ 2.6 for September.

Christopher said...

I don't see the Reps. getting a +5 in voter ID, at most I'd entertain a +1 due to the enthusiasm gap (I expect a D+2).

That said if the polls regarding PA and MI are even close to accurate (i.e. within Romney is within 4 points) then this may be a Romney blowout.

I don't see it going that way, I mean I expect it to be extremely close but if those two states are competitive then I don't see the Dems winning FL, OH, or VA.

pm317 said...

A must see video of the beautiful and courageous Lara Logan on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Taliban, AlQueda. Obama says AlQueda is dead.

buwaya said...

Yes, party affiliation is a demographic. These guys work from voter registration lists which have party information.

The republican/democrat/independent information is not the result of a poll question, or it isn't in the better run polls.

yashu said...

All of you noting that the Pew poll "oversampled" Republicans -- kudos on your consistency.

I'm going to be consistent too and say that there was no oversampling. Party affiliation is a poll result, not a demographic. This is a very good poll for Romney.


You're being very fair-minded here too, AF, so kudos to you too.

JohnJ said...

Romney’s “bounce” mostly is the result of a direct comparison of the President and the Governor by viewers of last week’s debate. I dunno that opinions formed in such a manner are as susceptible to the idiotic memes and talking points of the respective campaigns.

Here’s hoping.

chickelit said...

exhelodrvr1 said...
So the vagina vote is split?

Which pole are you talking about?

kcom said...

"Wait 'till the ladies get an earful/eyeful of Ryan come Thursday."

Maybe he should just come out, rip off his shirt, and start doing push-ups.

Dan said...

We all knew the pollsters would have to correct their D and R sample percentages or face loss of credibility... Obama's poor performance gave them the perfect chance to hide the jump and blame him... if I read this one right, the sample is nearly even between D and R.

Anonymous said...

"Maybe he should just come out, rip off his shirt, and start doing push-ups."

10/8/12 8:21 PM

And Biden should do the same.

R/R in a landslide.

Anonymous said...

YOU CALL THESE POLLS, I DO NOT WANT NO STINKIN' POLLS.

Potus Obama has won. Already. The election is over.

All women vote for Obama.
All minorities vote for Obama.
All alternative-lifestyle people vote for Obama.
All business-{wo}man vote for Obama.
All international people support Obama.

There is no MATH for Romney.

Election is over. Bring flowers on 10/16 to celebrate the end of the campaign.

Elle said...

kcom - I wouldn't complain.

Can't I use my lady bits to vote Rep? Or is that a no no? I can't keep it all straight.

TosaGuy said...

I was polled this evening. You pushed one for all the set questions and you also pressed one for Obama and two for Romney.

Automatic_Wing said...

Can't I use my lady bits to vote Rep? Or is that a no no? I can't keep it all straight.

Where I come from, voting with your lady bits is generally frowned upon, for sanitary reasons.

pm317 said...

Passing this on from another blog:

If you live in AZ, AR, CO, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MI, MT, NM, OH, PA, TX, or UT, tomorrow is the last day to register to vote!

Elle said...

True, Maguro. I'll behave, I promise.

Anonymous said...

Can't I use my lady bits to vote Rep?

If your state still uses voting machines and you're reasonably limber, I don't see why not. Can't imagine how you'd manage with a marksense ballot, though.